relieve your mind of anxiety that must be weighing on you. But we cannot
send an optimistic, reassuring cablegram. In the first place it would
not be true. Then no message must go out whose chance publication in the
newspapers would tend to make the world believe that danger here is
passed. The Powers might relax what diplomatic pressure they are
exercising at Constantinople--might even recall warships or stop others
that we hear are coming. Herbert is getting out the news by smuggling to
Cyprus. He feels the responsibility of every word that is telegraphed.
So we send you no message at all. There is still fear of a second and a
worse outbreak. The massacre is not over yet.
Early yesterday morning we learned that a train would go down the line
to Mersina at the usual hour. I packed what baby things I had left, and
a steamer trunk with a few of our clothes. Miss Talbot said she was
ready. My Armenian physician saw that the chance was excellent to get to
the coast in our company. He had a valid reason for accompanying me. We
took his whole family under our wing. His brother, a boy just turning
into the twenties, has lost his mind--we hope only temporarily--as a
result of the strain we have been under. The boy got it in his head that
I alone could save him. He has been camping outside our door, and
fumbling with our shutters at night. My Sub-Freshmen kept an eye on him,
but I have had to humor him. As he is my physician's brother, and there
has been no way of secluding him, I have had to do this. The boy
insisted on sitting in my compartment on the journey yesterday. He kept
me in sight. Once arrived in Mersina, they were able to take him away to
a friend's house.
We reached Mersina in time for lunch, where Mrs. Dodds--the soul of
kindness and solicitude--had kept rooms for us in her apartment. Mrs.
Dodds' little daughter, Mary, is a wonderful child--just like her mother
in wanting to be constantly doing things for other people. The
atmosphere of this home is so sweet and wholesome that it makes me proud
of my Covenanter ancestry and wonder if certain religious beliefs I have
always thought were narrow and absurd have not their place and their
reason. I asked Herbert about Covenanters last night, and found that he
knew less than I did. For a parson just out of Princeton Seminary, my
husband is astonishingly ignorant of theology. He doesn't seem to know
or care any more about doctrines than I do. Until last night, we had
never talked about theology, and then the conversation languished after
a few sentences.
Just after lunch two Turkish transports appeared off Mersina. They came
inside the line of warships, and began to disembark troops in the barges
that went out immediately to greet them. From the windows of the Dodds'
living-room we could see the barges returning laden with soldiers. My
eyes would not shut tight enough to dim the flash of the sunshine on the
waves and on the blood-red fezzes. Herbert declared that he must go down
to the _scala_ to see them land. I did not want to prevent him, for I
felt just as he did. Why couldn't I go too? It didn't seem to be "just
the thing for one in my condition," but you know, Mother, that I can't
live without exercise, and I have been impressing now for nearly a year
upon Herbert two things: that I need out-of-doors as much as a fish
needs water; and that I can go anywhere and do anything he does. I
shall never let him get the idea into his head that I am barred from
phases of his life just because I am a woman! Not a bit of it! Herbert
had to take his wife along.
A disreputable looking lot they were, wretchedly clad and shod, and
topped off with mussy, faded fezzes. We were told that they had come
from Beirut to restore order in Cilicia. They had taken part in the
Macedonian movement last summer, and were regiments whose officers
adhered to the "Young Turk" movement, and could be relied upon to check
any attempt to renew the massacres. There was much effervescence in the
town. Groups were talking excitedly. Herbert and I were crazy for news.
The last we heard was that Mahmud Shevket Pasha's army was moving on
Constantinople. The regiments lined the main street on the way to the
railway station. Something was going on--we could not tell what.
Suddenly they cheered--all together. The cheering was taken up by the
crowd. The band began to play. The regiments wheeled from attention,
and continued their march.
We went into a Greek shop. "What does all this mean?" we asked. The
proprietor eyed us in astonishment. "Don't you understand?" he answered.
"Abdul Hamid has been deposed, and his imprisoned brother proclaimed
sultan. The soldiers are cheering for Mohammed V. The authorities here
kept back the news. They didn't want to make the announcement until the
troops unquestionably loyal to the New Régime were landed."
There was much anxiety during the rest of the afternoon. The Christians
were nervous, Greeks and Syrians as well as Armenians. The British have
landed a few marines, and established a wig-wag station on top of a
house near us. People began to come for refuge to the American mission
at nightfall.
We have rumors of a second massacre at Adana this morning.
THE YOUNG TURKS AND THE TOY FLEET
_Mersina,
April twenty-ninth._
Dear Mother:
I suppose that baby doesn't come because I'm too busy and the time is
not propitious. There are more important things to think about and to
do. Sounds unmaternal and abnormal, doesn't it? But just like other
girls I had my dreams of how these days of waiting would be. And up to
several weeks ago I plied the needle vigorously, and thought a lot about
how many of each wee garment would be necessary, and what sort of
blanket would wash best. I hesitated a long time before deciding which
dress was the prettiest for IT to be baptized in. Now I don't know how
many garments I have. I haven't even made a complete inventory of what
we brought from Tarsus. We are too engrossed in the duties and problems
that each day brings forth to think at all about the morrow. Honestly,
Mother, during the four days we have been in Mersina, maternity hasn't
had much of a place in my mind--I mean, of course, my own maternity.
Heaven knows we have the babies coming in abundance all the time around
us, and there is everything to be done for them.
I wrote you of the landing of the Turkish regiments from Beirut on the
day we learned of Abdul Hamid's deposition. They went to Adana the same
day, and started that night a second massacre more terrible than the
first. The Armenians had given up their arms. On the advice of the
foreign naval officers--trusting in the warships here at Mersina--they
accepted the assurance of the Government that the "rioting" was over. So
they were defenseless when the Young Turk regiments came. The butchery
was easier. I spare you details. I wish to God I could have spared them
to myself. Most of our Adana friends who escaped the first massacre must
have been killed since last Saturday. The few who have reached Mersina
are like the messengers that came to Job. Adana is still hell. The
soldiers set fire to the French Mission buildings, and are going each
night after other foreign property. The American Girls' Boarding School
was evacuated. The teachers and some girls who were saved arrived
yesterday, and are with us. One of our American teachers has typhoid,
and reached us on a stretcher.
Herbert brought me here from Tarsus to get away from the contagion that
might come from the crowding of refugees in our compound. It is now
worse here than it was in Tarsus. And this morning word came to us that
we must be ready at any moment to move to the French Consulate. The
captains of the warships had a meeting last night, and decided to
defend the French and German consulates in case of trouble. They
notified the local authorities that if killing began in Mersina three
hundred German, French and British sailors would be landed with
machine-guns to _protect foreigners_. The idea is to gather the
foreigners together, and let the Armenians and other native Christians
shift for themselves. Of course we could not enter into any such scheme
as that. The Dodds would under no circumstances desert those who have
taken refuge with them. Anyway, we Americans are invited only by
courtesy. Ships of the other Great Powers are here. American ships are
supposed to be en route. But we have not seen them yet. We wonder if the
new Administration is going to continue the supine policy of Mr.
Roosevelt, who always refused to do anything for Americans and American
interests in this part of the world. I used to think that missionaries
looked to Washington for help and protection. Now I know that the
United States is known in Turkey only by the missionaries. If our flag
has any prestige or honor, it is due to men like Daddy Christie, and not
to the Embassy in Constantinople or the few Consuls scattered here and
there.
At the station, soldiers are turning back the Armenians who have managed
to slip into trains at Adana and Tarsus. From a long distance one can
see, when riding in the train, the warships in the harbor, flying the
flags of the "protecting" Powers, whose obligation to make secure life
and liberty for Armenians was solemnly entered into by the Treaty of
Berlin. One does not expect much of Russia: the treaty was imposed upon
her. But England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy--they all have
warships at Mersina. Armenian refugees, fleeing from the massacre at
Adana, which occurred right under the nose of the English, French,
Germans, Austrians and Italians, see these warships as the train draws
into Mersina station. Turkish soldiers, of the same regiments who
massacred them three days ago, bar the way. Back they must go to death.
Herbert and I meet the trains. We look for the chance to smuggle friends
through. We got H---- B---- through yesterday. The Swiss stationmaster,
Monsieur B----, remonstrated hotly with Herbert about allowing me to
come to the station. "It is no place for your wife," he declared. "There
might be bloodshed any minute, if a refugee resists." But I held my
ground. I knew H---- B---- was going to try to get on this train. He had
money to bribe with, and could travel first-class. Mother, I managed to
slip into the first-class coach just as the train stopped, and came out
the other end leaning heavily on H---- B----'s arm. We left the station
through the waiting-room, and none said a word or stopped us. H----
B---- was safe. Herbert couldn't have done it. The Turks, for all their
cruelty, have a curious chivalry upon which I banked. I was not
mistaken. H---- B---- kept my arm all the way to the Dodds. The poor boy
is in agony. He has just heard that his father, a wealthy merchant of
Alexandretta, was killed, and his mother and sister--well, I'll leave it
to you to guess.
But this adventure is nothing to one I had late in the afternoon of the
twenty-seventh. Herbert had gone for news to the wigwagging station the
British have established on a villa just in front of Major
Doughty-Wylie's. I thought there might still be some oranges in the
bazaar. It was an excuse to walk. I cannot stay indoors--no matter what
happens. It wasn't far, anyhow. Just a little way down our street. As I
was returning, I heard "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey," coming from
somewhere. It struck me as curious. I stopped. The whistling continued
staccato and insistent. It came from a narrow side street. I waited
until the patrol had passed along, and then whistled in turn, "Every
night the papers say," and stopped. Immediately it was taken up:
"There's a robbery in the park." I decided to investigate. Several
houses along, I heard a whisper, "Mrs. Gibbons." Under the stoop was an
American Armenian, whom I had met during the winter in Adana. He had
been waiting for some one he knew to pass on the main street. He was in
rags--had worked his way overland somehow from Adana. He would be
arrested if he tried to make the Mission. Patrols were passing
constantly. I told him to wait where he was. I went back to the Dodds,
put on Herbert's raincoat, stuffed a cap in the pocket, and returned to
the side street. The Armenian refugee could cover himself completely in
the coat. I told him to pull the cap well down over his ears. He walked
back with me. It was no trouble at all. The young man has money, and an
American passport. The latter is no good to him. As he can pay, we think
it possible to smuggle him somehow aboard a ship.[5]
Almost all who have reached Mersina, however, are women and children.
For the men are killed on sight. The refugees in the Dodds' compound are
of my sex. They are husbandless, fatherless, sonless. Now we know that
the only difference between Young and Old Turks is that the Young Turks
are more energetic and thorough in their massacring. None would succeed
in escaping the dragnet were it not for the fact that Armenians look and
dress--and many of them speak--just like Turks. Refugees are not easily
detected.
My doctor has gone. The day after we reached Mersina, he had a chance to
get passage with his family to Cyprus. I urged him to go. I had Miss
Talbot, and I could not have on my mind the responsibility of his
remaining just to take care of me. I am glad he left when the going was
good. Now it is practically impossible. The _scala_, from which the
little boats go out to the ships, is carefully guarded. The Young Turks
are taking "strict measures" to put down "the rebellion"! Armenians who
try to escape from the Adana butcher's pen are hauled before the
court-martial. According to the Turkish reasoning, attempting to avoid
death is proof of an Armenian's guilt.
As I write these awful things--a few weeks ago I should have called them
incredible things--I see from my window the half-moon of warships a mile
out to sea. They ride quietly at anchor. Launches are all the time
plying to and fro between ships and shore. That is the extent of their
activity.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] This was afterwards done, but I was unfortunately unable to have a
part in it. I think I know one Armenian who believes the U.S.A. is the
place to stay forever!
A NEW LIFE
_Mersina,
May twelfth._
Grandmother dear:
I think it was old Thales (I'm nearer the Greek philosophers out here
than I ever was at college) who held that the earth was nothing but
certain elements in a state of constant change. Everything is changing
all the time. And the inhabitants of the earth have the same chance and
luck as the earth, and follow the same law. It is well expressed from
the standpoint of the moment of time in which one is placed by the
favorite Turkish proverb: "This also shall pass!" Typically Turkish,
that proverb: for the Turk never interprets any event, never tackles the
solution of any problem, except in terms of himself and the present.
Yesterday is like to-morrow. It is a waste of time to worry over either.
In crises Turkish philosophy is excellent. It helps a lot to create
nerve and maintain fortitude if only you can keep saying to yourself
with conviction: "This also shall pass!"
Scrappie is beside me as I write, in the reed basket we bought from the
Fellahin. I am propped just high enough on the pillows to keep my eye on
her. I watch her all the time to see if she is really breathing. I have
heard of wives making husbands get up in the night to see if baby was
breathing, and scoffed at the folly of it. But I'm going to confess to
you that I've had two panics. Each time I assured Herbert that this
happens only with first babies, but that doesn't seem to mollify him.
There never was such a fellow for sleeping as Herbert. However, wouldn't
it be awful if the baby's covers got up over her head? You understand
how I feel, don't you?
_Miette_, "bread-crumb," is the name Jeanne Imer gave Christine in
prospect. It also means a little scrap of anything: so Herbert and I
translated it into Scrappie. The name had the advantage of being
non-committal on sex. So Scrappie she is to us. Perhaps you will give
her another pet name in Paris. But we rather like ours--I never heard of
another kiddie having it.
The birth of your grandchild was not a whit less dramatic than the
events preceding. There was a "situation" right up to the last. I wrote
you about the plan to gather foreigners in two defended consulates if
there was a new massacre at Mersina. The massacre didn't come off. We
shouldn't have gone anyway. Miss Talbot was as game as we were to stay
on with the Dodds. The improvised hospitals in Adana called for all
available medical men. The ship surgeons, with their pharmacists, all
went to Adana. The Mersina mission doctor was working among our Tarsus
wounded. I was altogether doctorless. At daybreak of Scrappie's
birthday, Mr. Dodds swept the horizon of the sea with his telescope. We
were expecting every day relief ships, with Red Cross units, from
Beirut. A speck developed into a steamer. Without waiting to ascertain
more, Mr. Dodds threw himself into his rowboat. Two husky servants of
the mission were at the oars.
It was lucky Mr. Dodds did not hesitate longer. But he is not that sort.
It was a ship from Beirut, and there was an American surgeon aboard.
Doctor Dorman walked into my room just in time.
Everybody in the Mission feels that the placid little baby, with her
great blue eyes, is the symbol of hope. Scrappie knows nothing of what
the wicked world is doing and how all around her are dying and
suffering. She is unadulterated joy. Miss Talbot tried her best, but
there were no drawn blinds and pale wan mother. Folks came in to offer
congratulations, and make a fuss. I was glad they did. The refugees in
the compound celebrated by gathering on a roof below and singing. Some
were sorry for us, because it was not a boy, but, after all, if Madama
wanted a girl--how queer of Americans to be glad to have daughters!
No one around the Mission had time to celebrate with Herbert, and there
was nothing anyway to drink the baby's health in. Herbert went out to
send telegrams to the Doughty-Wylies and the Christies, and the
cablegram to the Estes. He says he kept saying to himself as he went
down the street, "I'm a father!" It's like men to be proud and take all
the credit, which just now I think belongs to me. Herbert went to the
British wigwag station, but the sailors couldn't leave their post. So he
had to order a bottle of beer at Flutey's all alone. Just then a German
lieutenant drifted in. Herbert told him the good news, although he had
never seen him before, and he drank the toast as sympathetically as a
young bachelor could.[6]
On the morning of Scrappie's advent, after a hurried breakfast, my
doctor rushed for the Adana train. I haven't seen him since. Nor any
other doctor. Miss Talbot is superb. I couldn't have better care. Mrs.
Dodds cooks for me herself, and serves my meals. She thinks Miss Talbot
is over-careful in prescribing my diet. When Mrs. Dodds brings
soft-boiled eggs, she whispers: "Eat half of this quickly. Miss Talbot
thinks there is only one, but I'd like to see any one go hungry in Belle
Dodds' house!" Until to-day, when I am first able to write you, they
kept pillows out of my reach--books, too. Herbert is too busy to be with
me. He has had to go to Tarsus and twice to Adana. Two days after
Scrappie came, the Major telegraphed for him to come to take the
witness-stand before the court-martial. Lawson Chambers had gone on
relief work in the interior, and Herbert was the only other foreigner
who saw the beginning of the massacre. It was a risky business, but I
have got used to letting him go. The tragedy is too great for
individuals to count--or to think of themselves.
With Herbert away, and Scrappie sleeping most of the time, and no books,
all I could do was to sing. I've gone over all my favorite songs--and
many that weren't favorites have been hummed through to the end. I
refused to be deterred by the fact that I am under a roof where singing
is mostly confined to the metrical version of the Psalms. Mr. Dodds,
however, gets away bravely from psalms when he comes to sit beside me of
an evening. He loves to hold Scrappie, and sing to her, "Shut Down the
Curtains of Your Sweet Blue Eyes." Herbert delights her with
"Macnamara's Band."
I have had other visitors in this first week. Most welcome was the
chaplain of the British cruiser _Swiftsure_, of whom we had seen
something before Scrappie arrived. (Note how I date everything by
Scrappie?) Scrappie was about fifty hours old when he turned up with a
bottle of old brandy under his arm. I was glad to have his call--and the
bottle--just as Herbert was going off once more. And with my door
open--it could not be shut all the time--I could hear those dreadful
telegrams being read that kept coming from Kessab, Dortyol, Hadjin and
other towns of our _vilayet_ and of Northern Syria. Everywhere it was
the same story.
Yesterday a second American battle cruiser arrived. It was the
_Montana_. The _North Carolina_ came in several days ago. The first
officer to land from the _Montana_ was Lieutenant-Commander Beach. When
he came to the Mission to call, I asked Miss Talbot to bring him in. He
stayed some time, and would have cheered me up a lot had he not
mentioned that Lili Neumann was dead. He did not know, of course, what
Lili was to me, and I managed to say nothing. Under other circumstances
it would have been a bad shock, but just now nothing seems to go too
deep. However, my face must have told him I was suffering, for he looked
down so kindly, and asked if there was anything I wanted. "Because, by
Jove! you can have the ship," he declared. I told him I hadn't seen ice
for ten months. "Just the thing," he exclaimed. A few hours later,
sailors brought a huge rectangle of the most delicious thing in the
world. There was also a bottle of Bols curaçao, and a sweet note. People
are good.
Mr. Dodds and Mr. Wilson and Herbert got to work on the ice with
hatchets. Mrs. Dodds made ice-cream last night and again for lunch
to-day.
I must stop this letter, which has been written largely on the
inspiration of that ice-cream. Miss Talbot has scolded me twice, and
she hasn't seen other times that I got the paper and pencil under the
mattress too soon for her.
I cannot leave it, though, without telling you of another invaluable
helper. The very day of Scrappie's arrival, a wee, sawed-off Armenian
woman came in. I heard somebody say "Sh," but she started in her
toothless Jabberwocky. Miss Talbot tried the effect of cool, insistent
English, but she couldn't put Dudu Hanum out. For Dudu Hanum squatted
down on the floor, and I snickered. Miss T. thought I was asleep. She
went to get Mrs. Dodds to interpret. In the meantime, Dudu Hanum
addressed me. She rolled up her sleeves and held her arms out and then
up over her head the way you do when you want to stop hiccoughs. All the
while she talked volubly. It wasn't Turkish. I had learned some of that.
As it didn't sound like a gang of wreckers pulling down a house, it
wasn't Arabic. Must be Armenian. I recognized Dudu Hanum as the sister
of the agent who gets our things out of the custom-house. Finally we
learned what it was all about. Dudu Hanum was saying: "I have no gift to
give you, but I have these two hands. Let me do your washing. I shall
wash all your things and all of the baby's." The blessed old thing comes
early every morning. What garments Mrs. Dodds allows to escape from her
own capable hands, Dudu Hanum washes, and hangs them to dry upon the
sun-baked roof.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] A year later I told this story in a Berlin salon. One of the guests
at tea, Countess ----, exclaimed, "Why that boy was my son. He wrote me
about it at the time."
OFF TO EGYPT
_May twenty-seventh._
Granny Dear:
"The force of example" was a dry old phrase to me not longer than
twenty-one days ago. But since Scrappie's coming has moved the
generations in our family back one whole cog, I have been thinking about
that phrase as something vital. If I continue to call you "Mother,"
Scrappie will call you that. Must I also begin now to call Herbert
"father"--move him back a generation, too?